Jury sentences father to death for killing his 5 children

A South Carolina father was sentenced to death Thursday for killing his five children with his own hands.

After they were dead, he drove around with their bodies for nine days before dumping them in garbage bags on the side of an Alabama dirt road, The Herald Sun reports.

Timothy Jones Jr. showed no emotion as the jury delivered the verdict after less than two hours of deliberation. They also could have sentenced him to life without parole.

The same Lexington County jury convicted Jones of five counts of murder last week in the deaths of his children, ages 1 to 8, in their Lexington home in August 2014.

Prosecutors pushed for a death sentence. Solicitor Rick Hubbard said in his closing argument earlier Thursday that if any jurors had doubts whether Jones deserved the death penalty, they should just consider the five garbage bags where he dumped their bodies in rural Alabama.